


Two Cats to Feed

by Castillon02



Series: Cats to Feed [2]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Asexual Character, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-27
Updated: 2018-07-28
Packaged: 2019-06-17 07:25:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15456267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Castillon02/pseuds/Castillon02
Summary: “Did you come just to say ‘I told you so’?” Bond finally asked.“On the contrary,” Q said, slipping his mobile back into his pocket. “I came here to give you a present.”In which Bond is laid up in Medical, and Q arrives with an unexpected guest.





	1. Mr. Ginger and Idjit

**Author's Note:**

> Sequel to 'First Cat to Feed' and posted for 007 Fest's Ace/Aro Day!

Stuck in Medical, it wasn’t long before Bond’s idle, drugged-up mind found a sufficiently diverting track: he began working out the logistics of having himself buried in a pyramid so he could take his poor blown-up Aston Martin with him when he died. **  
**

Which location in the UK would cause the maximum confusion for future archaeologists? Did he have the money for something ostentatious enough to provide a mild tourism benefit for a nearby community? Perhaps he could get someone to rig up a speaker with Aston Martin sounds; hauntings could be big money makers, and it would be fitting if the legend of a ghostly entombed Aston Martin lived on long after the name James Bond was forgotten.

The door creaked open, dispelling Bond’s thoughts of pyramids, and a pair of boots knocked across the concrete floor in his direction and stopped next to his bed. A soft thud against the floor indicated something being set down. A briefcase? No; a duffle bag?

Probably someone coming to bawl him out again, which was mostly why people visited him in Medical. Maybe if he pretended to be asleep…

“007,” a cool, implacable voice said next to him.

Ah. Bond opened his eyes. There would be no avoiding this one. “Q,” he said, and then coughed; the IV with the fluids and painkillers was keeping him hydrated, but it always gave him dry mouth. He pressed the button on the side of his hospital bed, inclining the back half into a vertical position so he could sit and look Q in the eye instead of staring up at his Adam’s apple.

They were nice eyes, if a little bloodshot around the green irises. Calm and clear. Not snapping with ire or frozen with disdain. Maybe he wasn’t in for a lecture after all...however much he deserved one.  

Ignoring Q and going dark in favor of chasing down a lead that turned out to be a trap had perhaps not been his best idea.

“Have some ice chips,” Q said, holding up one of those damnable plastic cups that always smelled like everything in Medical smelled, sterile and disposable and a little bit like old people. Or maybe old people just smelled like Medical.

Bond wrinkled his nose and reached out for the cup. His arm trembled. Painkillers, muscle weakness after getting shot. The usual.    

Q didn’t comment, but he shifted his grip to the bottom of the cup rather than letting go once Bond took hold of it, and they moved together to bring the edge of the cup to Bond’s mouth and tip a generous mouthful of ice between his lips. He let his hand drop, and Q took the cup and set it on the bedside table for him.

The ice chips melted, cold and deliciously liquid on his dry throat, so that he hardly cared about the sterile taste of the water.

Q scooted the visitor’s chair closer to the bed and sat down, pulling out his mobile. He gave every impression of being able to wait for a century if need be.

“Did you come just to say ‘I told you so’?” Bond finally asked.

“On the contrary,” Q said, slipping his mobile back into his pocket. “I came here to give you a present.”

“Hmm.” Bond squinted suspiciously; even doped for pain, he knew a reward was the last thing he should be getting after his ill-advised insubordination. “It’s not a piece of your mind, is it?”

“No, something much better,” Q promised.

For a moment, Bond let himself envision a nice bottle of scotch, or even some Q Branch moonshine. The lack of drink in here was driving him as mad as the antiseptic smell. Of course, half a grain of good sense told him that Q probably hadn’t brought him alcohol, but maybe some food that wasn’t from the hospital was in order?

Then Q lifted up a cat carrier from the floor, and something inside of it  _mraow_ ed.

“No,” Bond said immediately. The word rasped out of his mouth. The only cat in Q Branch was Mr. Ginger, the mouser Bond had given to Q, and Mr. Ginger didn’t deserve to be returned in a fit of pique, if that was what Q was doing. “He’s—” Bond’s throat clicked, maybe with dryness “—he’s your cat, not mine.” 

Q snorted with reassuring disdain. “Mr. Ginger is indeed my cat, and he wouldn’t go back to you if you bribed him with a thousand sushi rolls,” he said. 

“Good,” Bond said, mollified, and then, “Wait,” as he looked at the cat carrier.  

“This,” Q lifted the carrier up even more so Bond could see a dark, slender feline peering at him through the mesh, “is Mr. Black.  _Your_ cat.”

“I don’t need a cat,” Bond said. 

Q arched his eyebrows as if to say ‘Is that so?’ and looked down at him in the hospital bed, trailing his gaze from Bond’s face, which must have been sporting a rainbow of bruising, to the tips of his bandaged toes, which were poking out from the bottom of his blanket. They had been scraped up during the barefoot portion of his escape.

All right, so he looked a mess—what did that have to do with a cat?

“You’re injured,” Q said. “And purring promotes healing, and the shelter assured me that he’s their champion purrer.”

“Purring,” Bond repeated. “As in...purr-purr.” He said the words, and then he clicked his tongue to the roof of his mouth to approximate the sound.  _Purrrrrrrrrrr_. 

“Yes,” Q said, trying and failing to keep a straight face. “Purr-purr. Indeed. There have been studies, you know.” He set the carrier on the bed next to Bond and opened it.

The cat took a few moments to assess its surroundings before padding cautiously out of its carrier and sniffing at Bond’s blanket—so unlike Mr. Ginger’s swift flight from his box, those few months ago! But just as Mr. Ginger had, Mr. Black sought refuge from the open space soon enough, in this case by hopping under the bed.

Q crouched to look underneath, so that for a moment Bond could see nothing more of him than the tips of his wild hair, but he was only down there for a moment. “He’s fine,” Q explained, sitting back down again. “Huddled up near the head of the bed by the wall. He’ll come out when he’s more comfortable.”

Fair enough.  Bond could understand the cat’s need for defensible space.  

Q took his mobile out again and peered at it with exaggerated interest. Bond, sensing that satisfying Q as to the cat’s acclimation could take a while, pushed the button to lower his bed back down again. There was a startled hiss from the cat below as the bed moved, and then silence again.

Bond closed his eyes. Automatically, his breathing began to deepen. Bloody pain meds. He could never seem to sleep enough when he was on them...

When he opened his eyes again, Q was gone, and there was a soft, warm weight on his belly—which was, luckily, one of his least injured bits. The cat was curled up like an ink splotch, and its half-lidded green eyes looked back at Bond as Bond stared at it.

“Hullo,” Bond murmured to it, and he gathered enough strength to scratch it behind the ears for a few moments before his arm fell back onto the sheets. God, he was weak.

But a few moments seemed to be enough for Mr. Black. His eyes slipped closed, his front limbs stretched, and he began to purr like a well-tuned engine, his claws just pin-pricking Bond’s belly through the blanket as he kneaded.  

Bond would never admit it to Q, but it was nice, having this warm little engine-creature who seemed so happy just to stay close.

***

Bond still wasn’t sure about the heal-purring thing, but Mr. Black was at least entertaining. On that first morning, he nosed his way into every corner, leaped onto every shelf, missed a jump and flailed back onto the floor hilariously, and trapped himself in a high-up open medical cabinet until finally, after much distressed yelling, he was able to make up his mind to jump back onto the floor. 

“You’re an idjit,” Bond informed the cat, who happily nosed into his chin and purred. And thus the cat’s new name was born.

Just as entertaining as Idjit himself were people’s reactions when they came in to scold him and found Idjit staring up at them with his innocent moggie eyes.

Moneypenny still scowled at Bond when she came to bring him his “Here’s how badly you fucked up” paperwork now that he was nearly sensate enough to fill it out, but she redirected her attention to fussing over Idjit rather quickly, dangling Bond’s spare tie over Idjit’s head for him to chase. At least one of them was getting some exercise.

Tanner brought some canned cat food on his next visit. “The Q Branch cat likes this kind, too,” he said, looking on with ridiculous pride as Idjit loudly gorged himself on the wet food. “It gives him the worst tuna farts, though,” he added, and ignored Bond’s accusations of treachery on his way out. But the next time he came, he smuggled in cat food for Idjit and pub food for Bond, so Bond considered it a win.

The nurses also occasionally unbent enough to address “Mr. Black” by name and mention  _what a good patient he was, yes, he was_ , giving Idjit a nice pet while glaring pointedly at Bond as if to ask why he couldn’t be as good a patient as Idjit. (An unfair assessment, Bond felt, considering that Idjit had managed to trap himself in the biohazard waste bin while Bond had largely been unable to move enough to make trouble.)

Even Brunhilde, his recovery specialist, softened up enough that she scratched the cat behind the ears after all medical affairs and retraining schedules had been completed. Incredibly, she only threatened once to let the interns have a go at Bond so they could practice their stitches.

(Brunhilde’s actual name was Sara Tuft, and she had been personally seeing to Bond’s stitches for over a decade now.)     

This cat business was, in a word, ridiculous. For fuck’s sake, it was even good for him physically!

Just petting Idjit got his arms moving, got his trembling fingers focused on a specific task, and made him feel useful. As the days passed, he went from being able to scratch Idjit behind the ears for only a few moments, to doing it for a few minutes, to only stopping when Idjit pinned his ears back and flicked his tail to indicate that he’d had enough, thanks.

Once Bond could teeter his way to the water closet on his own, the nurses also charged him with filling Idjit’s food and water bowls, and with scooping the litter box, too. Small tasks that felt big when you could only walk a few steps, and felt important when they were the key to getting a small cat with a surprisingly big mouth to stop yelling at you.  

Bond supposed that he was grateful to the nurses for changing his catheter and his bag while he’d had them, so he might as well pass the favor on to Idjit. Idjit sat next to him while Bond sat next to the box and did the deed.

(Oddly, Q hadn’t opted for one of the fancy self-cleaning boxes.)  

(Q also hadn’t opted to visit, putting an end to any thoughts Bond might have had that the gift of Mr. Black meant he was fully forgiven for his foolishness.)

And if Idjit looked judgmental when it took Bond more than one try to stand up after cleaning his cat-box, that was all right: Idjit looked judgmental about everything, which was one of his endearing qualities.  

He looked judgmental about Bond’s flimsy excuses for push-ups and sit-ups.

He looked judgmental when Bond lay in bed all day instead of doing his rehab exercises (but he still lay on Bond’s chest and purred.)

He looked judgmental about the hospital food (an attitude that Bond shared).

And Bond didn’t bother to close the w.c. half the time, so Idjit even looked judgmental about how long it took Bond to shit. (Bloody pain meds, blocking things up.)

“You’ll see,” Bond told him from the toilet. “Soon enough we’ll be back to fifty push-ups and a decent ten minutes, and things will only go up from there. Well, and down. You know what I mean. It just takes a little time.”

Idjit even managed to look judgmental about Bond talking to a cat. This, of course, only made Bond do it more often, much as it made him do push-ups and sit-ups more often.

“You’re a lousy spotter,” he grunted as Idjit nosed his way into Bond’s ear while Bond was trying to do a sit-up. “Come on,” he nudged Idjit out of the way, “let’s start again, shall we?”

This was the longest he’d been in Medical for a while, but it was also the most injured he’d ever been. No major broken bones—his captors had been careful of that—but he’d been cracked and bruised all over, he’d developed multiple infections from the filthy conditions, and that last bullet wound hadn’t helped anything. His final contacts had had to carry him on a stretcher from the rendezvous point.

Under ordinary circumstances, he would have escaped Medical as soon as he could shuffle out and intimidate a driver into taking him home. This time, he had to wait until he was fit enough to corral Idjit into his carrier, and Idjit proved to be infuriatingly elusive when he wanted to be, fully capable of leaving Bond panting on the floor in despair.

The thought of leaving without Idjit did occur to him...but when all was said and done, Bond couldn’t bring himself to leave the cat to Brunhilde’s tender mercies.

No, it took a while before Bond could catch and release Idjit as well as himself. Eventually, however, he and Idjit made their great escape, ducking and dodging nurses and officious junior agents until they reached the parking level. Bond considered it a point of pride that he was still able to intimidate the on-call driver even with Idjit along for the ride.  

***

(If Bond woke up from nightmares only to sigh at the sharp points of Idjit’s claws kneading his thigh, the thrum-thrum of Idjit’s purrs loud in the darkness, his fur silky smooth beneath Bond’s fingers—and if Bond shuddered every time, and knew instantly that he’d escaped, he wasn’t back there, and no more pain was coming...well, if Bond did any of that, then Idjit was the only one who knew about it.)  

***

Q had evidently expected Bond to bring Idjit home with him, judging by the new cat tree in Bond’s living room, the litter box tucked into a corner of the w.c., and the box of cat toys in the bedroom. He would have delivered the things himself, Bond thought. He looked around the flat with Q’s eyes, seeing the stacks of books on the floor, the unhung pictures, the half-unpacked boxes. Great.

The first thing Idjit did when Bond let him out of his carrier was get stuck behind the refrigerator. The next thing he did was dash madly around the flat and climb the curtains, possibly in an attempt to get a clear view of his new environment, possibly just because they were there.

Christ. Was this how Q felt when he was handling double-ohs?  

Bond swallowed his pain meds, retrieved Idjit from the curtains, and all but shoved Idjit’s face into one of the catnip toys while carrying him to bed. “Bedtime,” he said firmly, and hoped the drugs would keep both of them from waking up in the middle of the night, or at least keep him asleep while Idjit did whatever crazy cat things he needed to do in order to get used to living in a new place.

The catnip did seem to be working, at least. Probably Idjit wasn’t fantasizing about having a fake-haunted memorial (a memorial that got more and more elaborate each time Bond imagined it), but whatever he was thinking about seemed to do the trick, judging by the drooling and purring as he nuzzled his special stuffed friend. The tag on the toy had said ‘catnip chili pepper!’ but, green pubes aside, the toy mostly looked like one of those angry red cocks that were always being described in Bond’s trashy suspense novels.  

Well, Idjit would like what he liked. And Bond couldn’t exactly judge anyone for enjoying a cock.

Bond woke to find that Idjit had shredded an innocent bog roll in the night, but in the sober light of day he seemed more interested in supervising Bond’s breakfast and recovery activities than acting mad. In particular, he seemed happy to pounce on Bond’s belly and have a good sit and knead session when Bond worked himself so hard that he couldn’t get up from the floor.

The next time Bond wanted exercise, he waved around a feather wand for Idjit to chase until neither of them could move anymore.

“There,” he said, panting, while Idjit panted next to him, his kitty lungs heaving for breath. “See how it feels?”

Idjit tottered to his feet and batted half-heartedly at the feather wand on the floor.

“That’s it,” Bond said approvingly. “Persistent little devil, aren’t you? That’s good.”

They got stronger, day by day, as Bond did the tough work of rebuilding himself physically and psychologically into an agent fit to be seen in public again. Idjit’s shelter-thin body took on some healthy curves. Bond even found himself eating a little more and drinking a little less than he usually did. Idjit liked a bit of sandwich filling or grilled sole, but he turned his nose up at scrambled eggs and apparently hated the smell of alcohol, the little heathen.

In between workouts, Bond got used to reading with a warm lump of cat curled up next to his belly, and to black cat paws occasionally batting at the turning pages.


	2. Bond and Q

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bond recovers with Idjit but then has a brief cat crisis. Luckily, Q handles cat crises just as well as he handles work-related ones.

Eventually, Bond’s recovery leave ran out, and so did his desire to live alone with Idjit instead of irritating people at work with his existence.

“Did you miss me, Ms. Moneypenny?” he asked, leaning on her desk.

“Like a cat-owner misses furballs,” Moneypenny said, tilting her head to give him a knowing smirk. “And how is Mr. Black, by the way? Still alive?”

Did she think he couldn’t keep a cat alive? “It’s not like cats shuffle off easily,” Bond said. “Nine lives, and all that.”

“You must get along well with him, then, having so much in common.” Moneypenny’s eyes crinkled mischievously at the edges.

Aside from pestering Moneypenny, Bond ate lunch with Tanner, made good use of Six’s gym, dutifully read a few intel reports, made himself a nuisance in Q Branch, and generally did his most convincing impression of being unaltered by his last mission. Perhaps there was something to the idea that absence made the heart grow fonder, because after his time away, even Q asked whether he’d like to test Q Branch’s new rappelling belt. It wasn’t a very good rappelling belt, so Bond assumed he still had a bit to do to get back into Q’s good graces, but it seemed like positive progress.  

On the other hand, Bond came home and found that Idjit had missed the box for the first time, out of what seemed like pure disdain for Bond’s work-going habits.

“Look,” Bond said earnestly to him, “I’ve got to keep you in kitty litter and catnip treats. And sometimes the world is in trouble and it needs someone to help out, just like you did when you got trapped in the rubbish bin.”

But Idjit, a cat, wasn’t going to understand complicated financial and world-imperilment concepts. Bond did a quick online search and ordered some cat puzzles that he could fill with kibble and treats. Since the packages would take a few days to arrive, he made sure to give Idjit a little scavenger hunt to go on by hiding a few treats around the house before he left the next morning.

Idjit might not understand finances, but Bond would be damned if the cat turned out to be immune to the power of positive reinforcement.

***

It only took a few days before Idjit was practically rushing him out the door in the mornings. Ungrateful beast.

It did give Bond a few ideas about other kinds of training, though...

***

Idjit may not have understood what the recorded sound of a muffled gunshot was, but he knew that he got fish treats when he heard it, and fish treats were prime stuff.

Once he was comfortable with the gunshot sound, Idjit got treats for going towards the kitchen when he heard it. And then for entering the kitchen. Finally, for opening one of the low kitchen cupboards, nosing into the catbed Bond had hidden there, and staying in the cupboard for a few minutes after he heard the gunshot.

Idjit seemed to enjoy their evening gunshot game. Bond enjoyed rewarding his progress and knowing that his cat probably wouldn’t get shot if someone ever intruded and managed to kill him. It was a win/win situation, really.  

***

Five months after Bond brought Idjit home to stay, Moneypenny called as he was walking out the door to give him the heads-up that M wanted to meet with him. In other words, Bond was being sent out again.

Thank God. There were only so many push-ups and laps around the pool that one could do before looking for an excuse to put all that work to good use. He’d even made a point of walking past a few of the seedier pubs. Just to think about it, so far. And now a mission would keep him picking a fight with some real trouble instead of some petty criminals.

He nearly shut the door behind him before he remembered that he’d better bring Idjit to work with him. After all, who better to cat-sit than the original cat owner?

***

“I don’t think so,” Q said, apparently unmoved. “You’ll have to find a cattery.”

For a moment, Bond could only stare. Then, in his crate at Bond’s feet, Idjit  _mraow_ ed his discontent and demanded to be set free. “Come on, Q,” Bond said, recovering from his shock. “Look at him. A slip of a thing—you’ll barely know he’s there. And surely Mr. Ginger—”

“Mr. Ginger,” Q said primly, “is the reason for my refusal. He’s perfectly fine on his own.”

A stray piece of gossip wriggled its way into Bond’s thoughts. “Oh, he is, is he?” Bond asked. “I thought a rat tore half of Mr. Ginger’s ear off. That doesn’t seem fine to me.”

Q shrugged his shoulders and looked away. “I don’t see how Mr. Black can help with that. He’s a bit smaller than Mr. Ginger, you know, and Mr. Ginger is a good hunter on his own.”

Bond stepped forward, eyes narrowed. “It doesn’t matter how big Mr. Black is,” he said, willing to use Idjit’s formal name for the sake of persuasion. “Mr. Ginger may be a good hunter, but two will always be safer than one. Don’t you want your cat to be safe, Q?”

Q looked up, a ‘gotcha’ gleam in his eyes. “Sorry, could you repeat that again?” he asked.

It dawned on Bond: the cats were symbolic. Oh God. He was too sober for this. “Mr. Ginger may be a good hunter, but two will always be safer than one,” he repeated reluctantly.

Q’s eyes pierced him. “Oh, they are, are they?” he murmured. “I had no idea you felt that way, Bond, but perhaps the way you were thrashed after you tried to go it alone last mission has changed your perspective on these things. So,” Q said. “Which way do you really feel? Are two hunters safer than one, or shall we leave Mr. Ginger and Mr. Black to go their separate ways, Mr. Ginger with me and Mr. Black with you and the cattery? I’m certain,” he said, “that Mr. Ginger will be able to do without Mr. Black if it comes to that. After all, Mr. Ginger is a very strong cat who knows what he’s doing.” He met Bond’s eyes and smiled his uncompromising smile.

“Did you really buy that cat just to make me admit I was wrong?” Bond asked.

“I bought the cat to give to you,” Q said. “What you think is best for him is up to you.”

Bond sighed and closed his eyes for a moment. He hadn’t even started his mission and he was already tired. “He’ll do best with Mr. Ginger,” he said. “Just like I do best with you. Usually. Next time I go it alone, I’ll try to have a better reason for it.”

“I suppose that’s as much as I can ask,” Q said, seeming satisfied. He hefted Idjit’s crate in his hands. “In return, I’m willing to board your cat in Q Branch.” He waved a hand to dismiss Bond, having already equipped him. “Take care, 007.”

“Q,” Bond said, and left with some relief. Cat metaphors. Christ.

Still—if Mr. Ginger got half the hunting partner in Mr. Black that Bond had in Q, he’d be a lucky cat indeed, and Bond would do well to remember it.

***

The job was diamond smuggling, and he prowled across the Atlantic after his targets, tracking them to New York, and then across the continent to Las Vegas. He had Q in his ear, Felix partnering with him, and Tiffany Case helping him from the inside. It was hardly possible for this mission to go worse than the last one, and in the end it took less than three weeks for things to come to a satisfying conclusion.

“You didn’t want any of those creepy western animatronics, did you, Q?” Bond asked, staring at the burning wreckage of Spang’s steam train headquarters. Historically accurate on the outside and filled with armed, robotic ‘lawmen’ and ‘saloon gals’ on the inside, it was the kind of contraption that validated Bond’s suspicions regarding people who were passionate about model trains. Only lack of funds kept them all from supervillainy, he was certain. Perhaps Spang had even entered the diamond business in order to satisfy his train lust.

Thank God Q enjoyed cars like a sensible person.

“Absolutely not,” Q said in his ear, answering his question. “They’re nothing but crude mechanicals.”

Bond smirked. “Does that make Spang the ass?”  

“Unless you’ve managed to lose your gun,” Q said.

“Mm, I think I’ll leave you in suspense. You’ll be happier to see me that way.”

“I suppose I’d better give you your flight details, then,” Q said, clearly attempting a neutral tone but unable to hide a hint of asperity in his voice. He didn’t have visuals out here in the Nevada desert, and the not-knowing was sure to poke at him relentlessly.

Bond grinned. If this didn’t ensure the first flight home, he didn’t know what would.

***  

He went to return the gun as soon as he got back, traversing the dimly lit Q Branch halls until he reached Q’s office. It was late, but odds were good that Q hadn’t left yet.

Bond pressed his hand against Q’s office door lock, got the literal green light, and went in.

He found Q slumped over his desk, his breath leaving him in rhythmic huffs that ruffled the papers underneath his face. Next to the desk, the cats in their cat bed appeared to have the same idea; they were curled up against each other like a yin-yang symbol, Idjit snoring unrepentantly in Mr. Ginger’s face.

Bond snapped a photo of cats and boffin on his phone (definitely for blackmail purposes and not any other reason) and set his gun on the desk next to Q with a soft click.

But even that sound, apparently, was too much for a light-sleeping Q, who jolted upright. “I’m awake,” he muttered, rubbing his eyes. “Who needs their equipment?” He blinked up at Bond. “Oh...welcome home, 007. Pardon the reception. 003 and 005 were both sent out today.” He took note of Bond’s gun and brightened. “Oh, well done!”

“Why, thank you, Q,” Bond said ironically. “I worked hard on it.”

“ _Mraow_?”

Bond turned. He’d recognize that miaow anywhere.

Idjit was blinking his eyes open. He sniffed the air, disentangled himself from Mr. Ginger, and trotted over to Bond, his tail waving high with friendly enthusiasm. With one quick leap, he scrabbled onto Bond’s shoulders, purring up a storm as he nuzzled Bond’s face.

Bond froze, completely unaccustomed to showing affection in the workplace, but Idjit would not be denied. He was happily leaving streaks of kitty snot across Bond’s cheek.

“You’re fine, Idjit, you’re fine,” Bond murmured, cupping Idjit’s soft, furry, idiot face in a hand that suddenly felt too big, too rough, too bloodstained to be touching something so small and joyful.  

How could he have thought this would work? How could Q?

“He should stay with you,” Bond said roughly, turning to Q. “You and Mr. Ginger.” His fingers mindlessly rubbed behind Idjit’s ears in the way Idjit liked.   

Q’s mouth, softly smiling, now dropped open. He swivelled his chair to face Bond. “What? He missed you, Bond; a fool could see it.”

“But I won’t come back one day,” Bond said, his chest tight. “It will be easier for him if he doesn’t expect me to. If he just...if he learns to stay with you, now.”  

Q frowned.

“I’ll visit,” Bond said. “I visit Q Branch anyway. And he likes Mr. Ginger. You saw them.” He gestured at the cat bed where they’d been curling up. “Surely we shouldn’t separate them?”

“They’ve grown close,” Q admitted. “But that calls for playdates, not for giving Idjit up for adoption.”  

“He’s just going to get hurt,” Bond said.

Idjit made a surprisingly graceful leap from his shoulder onto Q’s desk, neatly avoiding the metal bits and bobs in favor of landing on Q’s paperwork. He butted his head against Q’s arm and Q rubbed a finger under his chin.

“I could get hit by a bus tomorrow,” Q pointed out. “For that matter, so could Mr. Ginger if he weren’t wearing a geo-locking collar. But I’m not going to drop him on your doorstep because of it.” His eyes locked with Bond’s. “Just like you’re not going to stop visiting Q Branch because of it.”  

Bond swallowed. How much of this conversation was metaphor, again? “Q, I—” 

“Listen to me,” Q said, leaning forward. “I know that’s not your strong suit, but you showed some progress on your last mission, which has given me a smidgeon of hope. Now. Mr. Black went from being a very homeless kitty who was destined to be euthanized, to having a home with you. And then he had a home with me. He has two homes, now, understand? And one of them will always be waiting for him here, but it would be foolish for him not to have two homes while he can.”

Bond straightened his shoulders, thinking it over. Perhaps Q was right...again. Damn him.

Q, meanwhile, busied himself with breaking down and cleaning Bond’s gun, dropping Idjit unceremoniously onto the floor when he got too nosy.

Idjit slinked over to Bond and sat nearby. He and Q apparently co-owned the cat now. Or rather, they co-owned two cats, since Bond had been the one to give Mr. Ginger to Q, and it was only fair to offer Q the same service Q was offering him.

Q’s eyes narrowed slightly as he concentrated on his task. He had lovely dark eyelashes, did Q, and broad, slender shoulders that bore the weight of his department with grace. His long, clever fingers knew just the right places to grip the disassembled gun, and he wiped off the oil and the gunpowder with familiar ease. His strong hands worked confidently, unshakingly; Q handled every crisis with that same cool decisiveness, whether he was facing enemy agents or (Bond’s mouth quirked up at one side) a double-oh’s kitty troubles.  

His steel-trap mind, his leadership, his loyalty, his cats, his ability to problem-solve creatively; what else did Bond know about Q?

Not much. Not yet.

“Er…” Bond cleared his throat. “Mr. Ginger can have two homes, too. If he ever needs another one.”

Q’s eyebrows shot up. “I see,” he said, thankfully seeming more amused than skeptical. “Tanner will be glad to know he’s not the first choice of cat-sitter any more.”   

“Do you want to go out for a pint?” Bond blurted.

Smooth, Bond. Smooth.

Q laughed. “I want you to take yourself home, 007, and take your troublemaking cat with you.”

Oh.

Apparently seeing something in Bond’s face, Q’s expression softened, and he said, “Ask me again when we’ve both got more sleep under our belts. And he wasn’t trouble, not really; he just has an odd habit of nesting in the cupboards.”  

“Can’t imagine how he picked that up,” Bond said innocently, and then, “At least let me escort you home.”

Q slanted a glance at him. “You won’t get my address that easily, I’m afraid.” He reassembled Bond’s gun and stowed it away in a floor safe before standing up. “But I suppose I can walk you to the door.”

“Not going home yourself?” Bond asked.

Q gave a rueful shake of his head. “I’ve got a conference with my counterpart in Station H in a few hours. Time differences, you know. I assure you that I’ll be taking the day after that, however.” He picked up Idjit’s carrier, glanced at Bond, and upon receiving a nod, he rather expertly scooped and dumped Idjit inside before zipping the carrier and handing him to Bond.

Idjit  _mraow_ ed indignantly at this rough handling. “Chin up,” Bond told him. “That was much better than when we left Medical together.”

Q ducked his head in a poor attempt at hiding a smile. “Theoretically, you can crate train them.”

“You should give me some pointers,” Bond said. “How about this evening? We’ll go for that pint.”  

“‘You can ask again after we’ve slept,’ I said.” Q arched his eyebrows. “Still working on that listening thing, 007.”

“I listen when it’s important,” Bond protested. He really had made an effort on the Spang job.

“Hmm, and improvement should be rewarded. How about this, then?” Q’s eyes glinted with challenge. “If you can find me to ask me, I’ll share a pint with you. And Bond? I’ve no plans to be anywhere but home all evening.”

***

Q lived, it turned out, in Vauxhall proper, in a flat above a suspiciously vacant and closed corner store. He opened his front door after Bond’s third knock, treating Bond to the sight of him in trackies and an old Imperial College t-shirt. “Moneypenny,” Q accused.

“Moneypenny,” Bond agreed. He hefted his peace offering, a bag full of take-away, beer, and a few cat treats for Mr. Ginger.

Q sighed, but he held the door open for Bond and let him in, locking up behind him. He motioned Bond to a squashy sofa and a battered coffee table sat in front of a large flat-screen TV, and then he sat stiffly on what was clearly ‘his’ end of the sofa. “ _Wheeler Dealers_  all right?” he asked.   

“Perfectly,” Bond replied, even though he had only a vague idea what it was. He sat down next to Q, placed their beers on the TARDIS-shaped coasters, and unpacked their Thai food.

All right. He was here. Now he just had to find a way out of this awkward silence. He glanced around: Mr. Ginger, asleep in a ball on his cat tree next to the TV, would be no help.  

Luckily, Q perked up as he surveyed the table. “Are those summer rolls?” he asked. Without waiting for Bond to answer, he grabbed the entire box of them, curling one arm protectively around it. In a flash, one of the fresh summer rolls had been dunked in the peanut sauce and half of it had disappeared down Q’s gullet. The other half followed more or less instantly.

Possible food-insecurity when he was young, half of Bond noted. Or perhaps just greedy siblings. Either way, it would take time and more food before Q trusted him not to take the things he wanted.

The other half of him was just amazed that Q could fit so much into that little mouth of his.

“Eat as much as you want, there’s plenty,” Bond said. He poured some massaman curry onto his rice and dug in.

As he ate, Q’s posture slipped into a more casual lounge, something that nearly approximated normal. On the screen, Mike explained where he’d discovered his latest decrepit find. ( _Wheeler Dealers_ , it turned out, was a show about restoring classic cars.) “Is Mike really getting a bargain?” Bond asked, nodding at the TV show.

“It depends on how much Edd can fix it up,” Q answered, though the show was in reruns and Bond had a feeling Q had seen it before.

“And how much could you do with it?” Bond asked, letting a hint of challenge into his tone.

Q turned to him, smirking. “How much do you think I could do with it?”

They were off to the races after that, talking cars and gadgets, engines and modifications, practicalities and whimsies. Q polished off all of the summer rolls, a tin of curry, and the sweet rice with mango before pulling out a pencil and a sketchbook from under the sofa so he could illustrate his points.

By then, Bond felt comfortable enough to lean into Q’s space, pluck the pencil from his fingers, and add onto the vehicle design: a stick man with a parachute floating above the car. “Got to have the ejection seat,” he said.

Q attempted to grab the pencil back; Bond held onto it. Q huffed. “All right,” he said, and he scooted closer, so their thighs were touching, and sat the sketchbook over both their laps. “We’ll do this together.”

They designed Bond’s dream car first, with occasional pauses to praise or excoriate Mike and Edd on the telly. It was an Aston, of course, ultra-modern since his classic one had been destroyed, and Q was happy to suggest some additional features.

“Flamethrowers?” Bond asked, amused, as Q drew little flames over the bonnet.

“Relatively easy to incorporate into the design, capable of damaging pursuing vehicles, and, most of all, psychologically intimidating,” Q said.  

“And cool,” Bond pointed out.

“And cool.” Q grinned at him.

They discovered that Bond was the better sketch artist but Q was a control freak, and when it came time to draw Q’s ideal car Bond raised a hand to cover Q’s eyes and said, “No, no, you can tell me what to draw, but you’re not allowed to look at this one until it’s finished.”

“How about this?” Q asked, and he wriggled until he was lying down with his head cushioned on Bond’s thigh. “Comfortable, and I’m staring at the ceiling instead of your drawing. Don’t make it weird,” he added. “I don’t like having sex with people.” He glanced away.  

Bond allowed himself a private moment of startlement at the announcement. But he supposed that with people like him in the world who enjoyed sex more than enough, there had to be people on the other end of the bell curve to keep things balanced. “Fair enough,” he said finally, “I’ll do my best to suppress my ravenous instincts in your presence,” and was gratified when Q snickered. “This all right?” Bond rested the sketchpad on Q’s chest.

“Perfectly,” Q said, a knowing half-smile on his face as he echoed Bond’s word from earlier.

“Then we’ll start with a model,” Bond said.

“Oh, I think I’d go with an Aston Martin DB5,” Q said, the corners of his eyes crinkled with mischief. “On the outside, at least. On the inside…”

The car Q described was a ferocious old lady with a bulletproof body, a missile launcher, a passenger eject button, and an acid-spit mechanism for pursuing vehicles. A clear tribute to M. Bond’s heart ached all over again at the knowledge of his Aston’s destruction, that this would never become reality; but he’d seen the damage for himself, after all. Hardly a steering wheel left.  

“Yes,” Q said with a satisfied nod after he sat up and viewed the finished sketch. “Yes, that’s nearly it. Well done.”

“Why, thank you, Q,” Bond said, genuine this time, and bumped shoulders with him.    

“I think I’m for bed,” Q said, nodding at the telly where the latest episode of Wheeler Dealers was coming to a close. “Do you need to use the facilities before you go?”

Bond had meant to ask earlier, not because he needed to piss but because it was a prime opportunity to snoop. Somehow he hadn’t even thought about it after they’d started talking. Now he looked at Q’s open, knowing gaze.  _Go look around_ , those eyes told him,  _I’ll mind, but I’m not expecting anything else_.

“I’m all right,” Bond said instead. He wanted to know more about Q, yes...but even more, he wanted Q to invite him to know more.   

Q smiled. “I suppose the the next meal is on me?” he asked.  

“If you can find me,” Bond teased. He stood, stretched, gave Mr. Ginger a scratch behind the ears, and walked to the door. “Good night, Q.” He let himself out.

“Good night, Bond,” Q called after him down the stairs. “And say goodnight to Idjit for me too.”

Bond waved his acknowledgment. He was already planning to get Idjit some extra fish treats. Idjit might not have gotten him laid, but Bond had had a surprisingly enjoyable evening, and Idjit had indirectly been the cause. That kind of wingmanning (pawmanning?) deserved a reward. Particularly because it had led to the promise of another meal with Q.

Hmm! Bond chuckled to himself as he walked through dark. He supposed that if you had two cats to feed, the real trick was getting them to feed each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: Q's explanation of his sexuality (ace) is deliberately simple; he's having a good time and prefers to give Bond a brief explanation rather than a broad lecture.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Constructive criticism is welcome. <3


End file.
